Category: Ubuntu

Rob Clark, maker of the open source GPU driver Freedreno shows off his latest Freedreno open source GPU working on an upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 based Dragonboard 820c development board, one that is going to use an expanded 96Boards specification to add PCI-E and Gigabit Ethernet ports among other things to the development board. This Freedreno and 820 board provides a significant jump in performance for the GPU, possibly 4x to 5x between the Adreno 306 in a Dragonboard 410c and the Adreno 530 in a Snapdragon 820 based board. The availability of the Freedreno open source GPU driver on Qualcomm based development boards means that these development boards can run all sorts of Linux distributions, including Debian, not just Android. You can read more about the Dragonboard 820c here.

Canonical shows some of the latest development boards where Ubuntu Core is supported, includes the 96Boards Qualcomm Dragonboard 410c, Raspberry Pi 3, Raspberry Pi Nano expecting to ship on a coin sized board. Also shipping on Samsung Artik, NXP i.MX6/i.MX7/i.MX8 and on Intel powered development boards also. Canonical also promotes their http://build.snapcraft.io platform to package any app for every Linux desktop, server, cloud or device, and deliver updates directly.

The Inforce 6410Plus is a Snapdragon 600 based development board. The Inforce 6410Plus features compatibility with a wide array of I/O such as camera connectivity and various sensors such as accelerometer. The Inforce 6410Plus features Arduino connectivity. The Inforce 6410Plus can run either Android or Linux. The Inforce 6410Plus is aimed primarily for robotics applications.

DisplayLink is showing some of their latest demos, here featuring a smooth wireless HTC Vive experience using a DisplayLink dock connected with wireless 60Ghz video signal to/from the VR gaming PC, then showing daisy-chaining 3 DisplayLink docks powered by the DisplayLink DL-6950 chip, launching this Dock in the Targus Dock 160 launching for $249 at Amazon.com. DisplayLink engineered its algorithm to compress display over USB, it works with Chromebooks, Android phones, Windows 10, Ubuntu, Mac OS and more. DisplayLink got integrated with Chromebooks natively by DisplayLink's partnership with Google, and for Android you just need to run the DisplayLink Presenter app for it to work from most Android phones that have Micro-USB or USB Type-C, as long as those have USB Host function active in them. DisplayLink is well integrated with Windows 10 also at the core of Windows Continuum. They also demonstrate SiBeam for a wireless USB connector.

Pine64 is one of the most successful 64bit ARM development boards yet, raising $1.7 Million on Kickstarter, shipping to 36,781 backers, it's released as a $15 development board, featuring the 64bit Allwinner A64 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 with ARM Mali400 MP2 GPU. Allwinner announces their partnership with Microsoft to get Windows 10 Azure IoT to run on this development board. It can also run several Linux, Android and more.